Imagine how hard it would be to manage 8500 independent business. Why would they need to manage 8500 businesses? That's probably the last thing they or the sta

Imagine how hard it would be to manage 8500 independent business. Why would they need to manage 8500 businesses? That's probably the last thing they or the startups want. Give the startup the resources and let them do the rest. So the question is: if they invested in 8500 startups, would Skype be one of them? If not, they still would have to buy Skype. Microsoft has spent billions on acquisitions and marketing that turned out to be a complete failure. Betting on some startups is probably a better gamble. Microsoft can concentrate that bet on a single business for a huge sum (like Skype) or they can spread it out among thousands of businesses with smaller amounts of capital. Realistically, given the money that they have, Microsoft can probably do both.